Ask a Domme: Is it cheating to see a dominatrix?

Verity Strict is a professional dominatrix and TV babe-show girl from the UK. In her weekly column ‘Ask a Domme’ Verity is our saucy agony aunt. She will navigate you through the mysterious world of kink, help you with your relationship problems and be there to answer any questions you’ve always wanted to throw at a real life femdom.

To see more of Verity Strict you can catch her on XXXpanded TV in the UK or online here if you’re somewhere else. Follow Verity on social media too. Instagram, Twitter.

To have your questions answered by Verity, please use the contact form here or tweet Verity or Harriet with the hastag #AskaDomme.

What sort of guys are typically your clients e.g. how do they look, what do they do, age, position in life, etc?

Ken, Hong Kong

I consider all forms of sex work to be part of the service industry. If you were to imagine the busy interior of a Starbucks Cafe, and take a look at all the customers you’d see they all possess a variety of qualities which makes them unique to one another. However, they are all brought together by a shared interest, which in this metaphor is presumably some incarnation of coffee. Switch Starbucks for a webcam room or a dungeon, and the shared interest to bending the knee to a superior, and you have yourself a rather accurate reflection of my gig.

So, if you want to know what my clients are like, ask yourself: how long is a piece of string? I’ve had dealings with a variety of clients over the years.

Some have been very attractive, whilst others are, to put it gently, no oil painting.

Some fulfil the old clichés. They are high powered business executives with money to burn or professionals such as doctors or lawyers by day who seek release through humiliation by night. Others are warehouse operatives, bus drivers, or waiters who work hard and save hard for a play date with their Mistress.

My youngest client I met when he was 20. My oldest is pushing for 90.

Each client has their own unique story, personal life dramas and fantasies. Though my clients are all equal in their purpose. The common denominator is that they all wish to serve, and provided they keep in line and prove they can behave themselves, all are welcome.

Do you have married clients, would you count seeing a femdom as cheating and how do you feel about that if so?

Anthony, Cardiff, UK

Though many clients choose not to disclose their marital status to me, which they are well within their right to keep private, I am aware that some of my subs are attached in some way, whether they are married or have a long term partner. Whether or not you count seeking the services of a dominatrix as cheating really depends on your own school of thought about what cheating actually is.

I think there is a lot of confusion surrounding what exactly is taking place when someone visits a dominatrix for their services as plenty of Dommes explicitly state that the work they do is non-sexual contact. So, by that virtue, if cheating is simply performing a sex act with another person, then visiting a dominatrix for a spanking session should be exempt from being categorised as such.

Oh, how I really wish it were that simple

Regardless of whether or not sexual contact is on the menu however, the fact of the matter is that the sub is almost always deriving some form of sexual pleasure from this interaction. A deep level of intimacy is present during these sessions, so if cheating in your book is sharing intimacy with a person external to the relationship, then indeed it should be regarded as being unfaithful. The same is true of virtual sex work. If you have ever been a regular patron of a webcam model, you develop an intimate connection with this model over time, without any physical interaction with them at all.

So, if I think it’s all cheating, then how on earth can I sleep at night I hear you ask?

When I am aware that a sub is in a relationship, I encourage them to communicate more openly with their partners, and I make them aware of the risks that engaging my services will incur. But the bottom line is that the choice to be unfaithful to a partner, and to carry the guilt associated with that, lies with the service seeker and not the provider.

Men who have partners that come to me have their justifications for why they seek my services.
Perhaps their partner cannot be intimate with them.

Perhaps they are concerned that their fantasies would make their partner uncomfortable and they would rather have their needs discretely catered to by a professional than cause any friction with their beloved.
Perhaps, and this is not unusual, they just get a buzz out of doing something they shouldn’t behind their partners back.

People enjoy participating in behaviour that has risk tied to it. If you choose to drink alcohol, you risk of getting drunk and potentially making a fool of yourself. The bartender might give you a warning that you’re going a little bit hard on the tequila, but they are not responsible for your decision to get turnt. They are just doing their job. They have the right to refuse you service, but if you’ve made up your mind to drink, you just move to the next bar.

I do not think it would be at all fair to get on my high horse and waffle on about about how morally superior I am just because I offer virtual services or do not offer my clients straight sex. If an attached man chooses to seek my services without this being approved by his partner(s), then yes, he is a cheat.

But I do not consider this a sufficient reason alone to turn down his business. Feel free to hiss and boo at me like I am the pantomime baddie here (future goals), but while it might not seem like the most ethical policy, sex work is a business just like any other, and sadly success cannot be attained by virtue alone.
So there you have it. Those expecting a puritanical response with regards to sexual morality should probably not ask such a question of a woman who whips people for a living.

Someone at work found my Fetlife profile and shared it with everyone. Now, no-one misses a chance to embarrass me about it. How can I handle this better, I’m thinking of getting a new job?

Nicolas, Sao Paolo, Brazil

I’m distinctly curious about how on earth they found you. Granted if you left your profile open at work with a whole picture gallery of you wearing full fetish regalia at Torture Garden, you’re in a bit of a sitting duck situation, but doesn’t one need to be a member of Fetlife to access the personal pages? I think your colleague has some explaining of their own to do. GimpMaskMegaCock555 does look awfully like John from the IT department come to think of it now.

Regardless of how your profile was discovered, it was really spiteful to out you to your colleagues. My best advice is to simply ignore the digs until the next scandal occurs. It might seem like dark days right now, but pretty soon Janet from HRs dodgy new haircut will be the flavour of the week.

The only reason you should change jobs here is that they sound like a bunch of boring bastards if they are titillated by the faintest whiff of kinky sex. Who knows? Perhaps a kinkier job might be suited to you. Why not become a latex garment designer or a sex toy tester? We all have our true calling in life, just some callings are naughtier than others.

What are the most memorable client requests you’ve had to turn down over the years?

Tamim, London, UK

I approach most requests with an open mind, so generally unless what my client asks of me is illegal, I’ll at least consider having a crack at it. I do after all, love a challenge. Challenges tend to result in the very best post-match pub stories to horrify and amuse my civilian friends with. However, some ‘polite notices’ sent to me really seem keen on testing my constitution, and frankly are unspeakable in terms of disgust levels and legal factors.

The strangest request that I can share with you that doesn’t violate any obscenity laws? Being offered £8,000 to kick a stool from under a man who intended to asphyxiate himself by hanging. As a safe, sane and consensual kink player, I started long and hard at my email inbox, as I was utterly blown away.

To clarify, I out and out refused but perhaps morbidly, I considered if there was any way to do this without seriously injuring someone. All of my calculations resulted in death, and that makes me uneasy. After all, I am a dominatrix, not a contract killer. Unable to meet his needs, I sensitively declined his offer.

My girlfriend likes rough sex but she bruises easily. I’m worried friends and family could be talking about me in the worst way. How do I avoid bruises while still giving her the experience she likes?

Gerald, Seattle, USA

It is important to keep in mind that a huge portion of BDSM play is a psychological experience. Though rough sex is clearly in the realm of physical play, you can heighten the senses of a partner by creating anticipation.

Perhaps you could do this by describing what you are going to do to your partner, and talk to them in a way that heightens the mood. This means that you can reduce the physical intensity, while getting the same psychological effect.

My big question is, without sounding like a pervert wanting you to graphically flesh out the details of your epic sex sessions (though really, I would love to hear when I’m having a night in with scented candles and a nice bottle of wine close to hand) what sort of thing are you doing to leave marks?

While it is impossible to guarantee that you won’t leave some form of marking as you are playing rough, there are methods of reducing the likelihood of marks and bruises. A quick science lesson. The type of bruising that occurs during rough sex results from damage to the blood vessels below the skin.

Spanking

If you spank someone really hard, the area of contact is rapidly compressed and this level of force causes blood to “rush” back to that area very quickly. Put simply, without ample preparation, this is likely to leave a lovely shiner.

You can prepare for impact play by warming up the area that you intend to spank or slap. Rather than going full force for a spank that makes your own palm sting from the get go, try lots of gentler little spanks to turn the skin a sort of pinkish colour. Then gradually build up from there.

Some areas are safer to spank than others, and other areas bruise far more easily than others. If you use tools to spank someone, depending on what it is, this also affects the likelihood of leaving marks.

Things with a bigger surface area such as paddles tend to be safer to use, while skinnier objects such as canes risk breaking the skin. You should exercise extreme caution if you slap her face, as you can do some serious, and potentially long term damage to this frankly fragile area.

Rope

If you are tying her up and this is causing bruising, make sure she has enough wiggle room, which should be about the width of 2-3 fingers, and regularly check the areas that are tied. If you happen to be using rope, make sure that it is made of an appropriate material to tie people up with, and not the industrial stuff you find kicking about at the garden centre as romantic as you may think it is to go lo-fi.

Cuffs and cable ties tend to carry more risk of bruising so use with caution, and make sure you can help her to get out of her bonds easily by having a pair of scissors or the keys nearby. As an aside, you should never ever leave a person who is tied up alone, even for the most pressing of reasons such as answering the door to the pizza delivery man for post kink munchies.

Easy on the throttling

If you choke your partner during sex, and this is causing bruising, you need to be using a far gentler hand is this is where things get quite dangerous. Slow and steady wins the race here and pacing yourself gives you much more time and opportunity to read your partners body language so you know the different between ‘too good’ and ‘too much’.

Your partner should be able to ‘tap out’ during this kind of play, so don’t do it if you have restricted their movement to the point they can’t give you a safety signal. You have to be extremely risk aware if this sort of thing comes into the rough sex you have with your partner.

Contrary to what you might think, slowing down just a little won’t kill the passion. Make your girlfriend anticipate what is about to happen, and be aware of how to reduce physical side effects and not only will you be able to have your lovely, rough sex but you will save yourself from having to explain your red-faced selves to the mob of concerned family and friends. Now, get down to business you bloody perverts.